Reserve Pricing (with a Catch) — Bido Reinstates

Auction platform allows reserve priced domain listings, but there’s a fee if they don’t sell.

In an effort to establish confidence with sellers and bring more premium inventory to its platform, Bido is allowing sellers to set reserve prices on their domain names.

Part of my prediction was correct – you’ll pay a fee if you list a domain with a reserve that doesn’t sell.

If Bido selects a domain you submit with a reserve, you’ll pay a listing fee of 3% of the reserve price. If the domain sells, this fee is refunded. If the domain doesn’t sell, Bido keeps the fee.

I like this idea, and hope other auction houses consider some variant of financial incentives to limit submissions.

It will be interesting to see how the Bido buyer community responds to reserve auctions. When Bido launched the first time it didn’t have reserve prices, but Bido made a “guarantee” to the seller that the domain would sell for a certain price. This effectively set a reserve price since Bido was able to make one bid if the domain wasn’t close to the guarantee price.